Evane’s face swam through Avena’s mind. Her other half swallowed by the white. Beside Evane’s features, Chames’s danced.
*
“It’s a weight you can’t put down, right?” Ōbhin asked, seeing the pain in Avena’s eyes. “It clings to you. Drags you down. Makes living harder.”
She nodded, slow, eyes watering.
Ōbhin could feel the plunge of his dagger into Taim’s chest, the look of shock on the young man’s face. Ōbhin knew even as he’d done it that Foonauri wasn’t worth it, but he had loved her so long. Worshiped her. He couldn’t give her up without a fight.
Only, it had destroyed him. After, he couldn’t keep up his adoration for her. Everything was tarnished. He might as well have died with Taim in the mines. Or he should have let the prince live. He didn’t have to make the worst mistake of his life.
Ōbhin poured them both fresh tankards. In silence, they drank, the dark shades of their past pressing in on them. Time drifted. The beer spilled over his tongue. He didn’t taste the sour any longer. His tongue felt numb to sensation, his body tingling with a fuzzy dullness, blunting the world. Farmers slipped out, heading to their beds while barmaids bustled around, collecting crockery.
Finally, the plump barmaid sauntered up, eyes hot, and purred, “Do you need help to your room, Ōbhin?”
He couldn’t remember if he’d learned her name, everything floating in a brown haze. He blinked at her words and glanced across the table at Avena. She looked slumped over, her head swaying. Her braid of brown hair fell over her shoulder, the strands bound in mauve.
The same colors adorning Foonauri’s mask when she’d arrived at court. Do they mean the same to Avena? wondered Ōbhin. Is she forever promised to a shade? Or does she just like the color?
“I’ll help her to her room,” Ōbhin said. A flicker of emotion flashed across the barmaid’s face. “Aliiva’s Nurturing Tone sings thanks.”
Her face scrunched up, then she flounced off, muttering, “Tethyrians.”
Ōbhin grimaced. To Lothonians, everyone from the east was Tethyrians. Those lowlanders cultivated vice and hedonism into virtues. He knew Tethyrian women were proud of their many lovers and men who enjoyed the thrill of a different woman in their bed. All indulged in their opiates and intoxicants. In the Vobreth Mountains, Qothians had learned discipline. While they weren’t as puritanical as the followers of Elohm, fidelity was seen as a virtue, the stable foundation of a family.
“Avena,” Ōbhin said with a gentle whisper. He took her forearm and gave a simple tug.
Her head lifted, eyes blurry, cheeks flushed. “Hmm?”
“It’s time to find our beds.”
“Oh,” she said. She rose and staggered into him. Her body’s warmth rippled through his jerkin. He smelled an herbal scent rising from her hair. She then swayed away from him and groaned, “Oh, dear, please ask Hajitha to set right her establishment.”
He chuckled, feeling the heady rush of the beer through him. “It’s a little crooked, isn’t it?”
“Mmm, like the darkling caves,” she said.
Lothonians believed in many superstitions, from a singular god to black creatures lurking in caves and grottoes. Qoth had similar stories of bent and gnarled niszeeths prowling the mines, and grumliicho who stole the faces of men lost in blizzards.
“Everything is crooked and off-kilter,” she said. “No Boan Sword-Arm to set things right.”
“Nope,” he said, smiling as she clung to his arm, her fingers wrapped tight.
He did his best to stagger across the room, leaving behind their murky conversation. The beer’s warmth filled him again, lightening his body even as it smothered his mind. They crossed the common room, only bumping against a few of the rough-made tables. Avena burst into giggles as a chair fell over with a loud boom.
“It tripped,” she whispered loudly, a bright smile on her lips.
The stairs proved tricky. They were narrow and swayed like the writhing back of an emerald mountain snake caught in a farmer’s snare. The runners creaked. The tight confines pressed Avena tight against him. An herbal scent—is it licorice? wondered Ōbhin—filled his nose. That heat gathered as she clung to him. Aches he hadn’t felt in years swelled through his nethers. Her giggles burst before him as they reached the top.
“I think . . . I think this is mine,” she said, pointing at the second door down, passing one with the clear shine of a diamond lamp bleeding through the gap between the door and wooden floor.
He escorted her to the door, only slightly crooked in its frame. She opened it onto a dark hole, a gaping maw. A cold wind stirred out of it. Her smile died as she stared into there. For a moment, Ōbhin thought he saw plump and bumbling Taim waiting, a look of shock on his fleshy face as he stared down at the dagger’s hilt blossoming from his chest.
Avena turned around, her eyes swimming. She grabbed the front of his jerkin as she swayed. He stared down at her, the naked need in her eyes beckoning. That heat swelled. She didn’t want to face the darkness alone. The emptiness scared her as much as him.
The drink pumped heat through his veins.
He leaned down, drawn to the plump pink of her lips. Maiden’s mauve. His lips came nearer and nearer. Her hands tightened on his leather jerkin for a moment. The drumming of his heart pounded blood in his ears. He couldn’t hear anything but the intensity of his ardor.
To be needed again . . .
To worship again . . .
Her right hand left his jerkin as his lips neared hers. He felt her breath and—
She put her hand against his lips and shook her head.
“What?” he asked.
“I’m promised,” she whispered, something sad in her tone.
“He’s dead.”
“Not
